


Nil-Nil

by theundeadsiren (rhoen)



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-07 15:40:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1904511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhoen/pseuds/theundeadsiren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were no winners.</p><p>Those few minutes alone in his bedroom after he finds out Kieren killed himself are some of the longest of Rick Macy's existence.</p><p>Rick-centric, because we really need more of him. Also looks back a little bit on what Rick remembers from his untreated state.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nil-Nil

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always so sorry for what I put you guys through. It hurts so much to write this kind of thing.

**You may not take this fic and edit or reupload it - in whole or in part - without my express permission. This includes translations.**

If you are reading this anywhere other than my (theundeadsiren) tumblr, AO3 or livejournal, then please [let me know](http://theundeadsiren.tumblr.com/ask/), including a link to where you found it, so I can take steps to have it removed. For a list of people given permission to use parts of my works, please see [here](http://theundeadsiren.tumblr.com/permission).

Thank you for respecting my wishes

* * *

 

His mind's gone blank. His eyes are staring vacantly at the framed strip on the wall, but he's not quite seeing. His mind's not quite functioning. It's still caught on that one thing - Ren.

How could Ren do that? How could he even...?

But he knew why. He just didn't want to see it, he didn't want it to be true.

Coming back... oh how he'd looked forward to it. He'd heard about how bad things had gotten - he knew about the HVF and how Roarton had been left to cope on its own when the military focus had been shifted solely to densely populated areas. He was proud of his little home village, the way they'd all banded together. He was grateful he had his parents to come home to, and proud that his dad had led the HVF. I didn't surprise him that his dad stepped up - he was just disappointed that he hadn't been there to pitch in too. Guilty, he guessed. While they'd been here dealing with... all that... he'd been off in a desert somewhere, finally captured and detained, being pieced back together and dosed back to normality in a military facility. He hated that. Rick wasn't weak, but those memories he had of that dark, too-hot containment cell... The memory of the stench lingered in his memory - the smell of his own corpse rotting in the unbearable heat. He hadn't felt the heat, but somehow the sensation of his body deteriorating reached deep within whatever was left of his brain and had left him pinned in a place worse than nothingness - a place where all he could feel was desperation and hunger, this overwhelming need to feed on the first living thing he could get his hands on.

He tried to shove those dark, desperate memories away. He tried to forget that fetid stench, the way his putrid flesh fell away at he repeatedly thrashed and fought in his bonds, the dark, dark isolation with nothing to sustain him, nothing to devour...

He shouldn't remember. The shrink, when Rick had finally told him, had said it was highly unusual for someone like Rick to remember what happened during his 'untreated state' in such detail. Some 'PDS sufferers' did experience flashbacks, usually as a result of taking the medication, but the fact that Rick retained his senses for so long after he... for so long into his 'untreated state'.

He'd not mentioned it again after that. He felt like a weakling. Long, empty nights would pass, and to fill them he tried desperately not to focus on that dark, dark chasm in his life had fallen into, but rather on his family and friends. Some of the mates he'd met in the army hadn't made it. They had been killed in action, a good few of them in what the army called 'singularly outstanding service', which was just the military's way of saying 'going round shooting the reanimated corpses'. Again, the guilt. He hadn't wanted to d-. He wished that fucking IUD hadn't detonated. He wished he'd been there with his mates when the shit got real, standing by their side rather than... Rather than...

The military had taken care of him. For better or for worse, he was (for want of a better word) preserved until this miracle drug had been created. Civvies were treated with no such care, and were quite simply shot on sight, their bodies burnt. Or so he heard once he had been treated. Rick'd had no measure of time in that state. He just had moments where he knew he existed, in one of the most frighteningly basic senses of the term. He could recall his time in what he had come to refer to as the 'oven' - that nightmarish cell where he'd been left to rot in the heat, starving and empty - but he remembered nothing of the time after they started sedating him and had finally moved him to a giant walk-in fridge. When he asked the medic attending him about it, the guy thought for a few moment before saying that he figured it must have been about a fortnight or so after they'd managed to detain Rick that they'd received instructions from Head Office as to what to do with him, and the two other military personnel they'd managed to capture since then. Rick knew the two guys. They were the same as him, but he had no recollection of them before the Neurotriptyline took effect.

He'd try and drag his dark, heavy thoughts back into the light, back to something he though of often and missed: home. He'd been gone something close to a fifth of his life. How could it have been so long? He asked himself questions, wondering about the answers to try and distract himself. Did his mum look well? Was she still using the crockery set he'd gotten her for her last birthday before he left? Had she done anything about that flower pot he'd managed to drive over and break with the Jeep? After leaving, Rick kicked himself for not replacing it, and had guiltily crammed a few notes into a card which he'd shoved it in the post box at the first opportunity he got.

He'd wondered what people looked like. He hated to think about his own appearance; the sickeningly pale skin, the horrific stitching on his face, and he way his body refused to function as it should, as he desperately wanted it to. To him, the cover-up was a God-send. Everything felt just a tiny bit okay when he stood in front of the small cracked mirror, uniform on, skin concealed. Needless to say, he didn't look at his reflection often.

He'd wondered what Ren looked like. For all the good Neurotriptyline was supposed to do, it hadn't fixed Rick's brain when it came to Ren. He still felt as lost and confused as he had ever done. He still missed him more than he felt he had any right to. But Ren had his own life to lead. It was selfish to want him to stay behind. He'd gotten a full scholarship to art school. Was it pathetic to have felt jealous? It was the only way their friendship could have gone - of course they were going to grow apart from each other and move away. It just... it hurt that Ren was going to be the one to go, even though Rick knew Ren had never fitted in.

Rick was going to get an apprentice job down the mechanics, he was all set to start when he finished school - something he only really stuck with for the sports, and to keep Ren company during lunch and study hours when his friend chose to work alone in the art studio, rather than face the rest of the students. Rick's dad had always said there wasn't any point arsing around and staying on at school, it was just a waste of time, he said, but Rick had pulled the perseverance card, quoting Ren almost word-for-word as he told his dad that he figured he might as well finish what he'd started, rather than leaving it incomplete. He said he wanted to get this down. He had plenty of time for life afterwards.

Ren... He'd got it sorted. He was set. He was going places - going somewhere he could relax and be himself. He was gonna make tonnes of weird artsy friends at college, and Rick was gonna be pleased for him and tease him for his dumb dress sense and the way he always seemed to get smudges of ink and paint on his clothing and skin. Rick was gonna go visit him, let Ren show him all the best bars and clubs. On holidays they were gonna hang out together, commandeer Freddie's garage and watch predictable movies and eat junk and drink way too much cheap lager. They could visit the old den, get into all kinds of shit like they used to...

It was becoming too much, just like it had back then. Rick had run away. He was a coward, but he didn't know what else to do. It was such a good idea at the time. He'd felt lost, like he was losing Ren before he'd even left. It suddenly seemed like it would be so much easier if he took control and _he_ was the one to leave first. There was nothing wrong with joining the army. Rick was physically fit. It was a good life - good structure, good pay, a roof over your head, food on your plate and brilliant mates chucked into the bargain. It would make his dad proud. It had made his dad proud. He remembered grinning as he left, pleased to have done right by his dad. He'd refused to let himself think of Ren, who he was doing such a wrong by. Not even twelve hours ago, they'd said a brief goodbye, Kieren left with the unintended promise of ' _see you tomorrow_ ' that Rick knew he couldn't keep but had made anyway. He hadn't know how to tell him. He couldn't work out who he betrayed more - Ren or himself.

He didn't want to believe it. He prayed so hard for it to be untrue. He wished everything would go back to how it was when he'd left. At least then Ren would still be alive.

He'd looked for him. He'd hoped he'd be there when Rick got back. He tried so hard to find Ren's face amongst the familiar strangers that had gathered round for his return.

But Ren wasn't there. He greeted his dad, looked around to confirm... Jem and Sue were there, but no Kieren. He'd guessed he could still be at college, maybe somewhere with Steve...

And then his dad had told him what happened.

Kieren Walker had killed himself.

.

He sits alone in his room, watching vacantly as dust motes are stirred by the crack in his window. He figures his mum cleaned up in here, regularly dusting. Does Sue do the same with Kieren's room? Did they keep his stuff?

Shit, how does he even do this? A dark ugly despair is trying to choke him. He wants Ren. He wants Ren more than he's ever wanted anything in his entire life. He wants answers to all the questions he can't seem to form in his mind.

He thinks of Sue again, of how kind she always was to him, how she always spoiled him whenever he visited. He wishes he could go and talk to her.

His dad comes in. He stiffens at his words, reacting badly. He barely managed to get it together, to show that nothing's wrong. But he manages. His dad hands him a can of cheep lager. He takes it. He knows drink is toxic. His body won't put up with him chugging it down as he does, but he doesn't care. Fuck this body.

Maybe if he drinks enough, and fast enough too, he'll be able to get drunk.

And maybe then, for even just one precious minute, he can pretend things are okay.

 

**Author's Note:**

> For now I'm just going to leave it as it is, but there is a second part, which actually leads quite nicely into another fic I've had on the back burner for way too long, so... maybe...


End file.
